Sleeper

by Jed Mercurio, Prasanna Puwanarajah

The first in a hotly anticipated new graphic novel series DS-5, a biologically-enhanced law enforcement marshal, is due to be decommissioned after decades in deep space. He returns to a solar system finally rising out of a devastating climate war following the discovery of a miraculous new energy Titan Green. His pod crashes on Titan following a mysterious explosion, and DS-5 deploys for his final an investigation into mass murder that becomes entwined with a geologist's quest for her missing father. But as DS-5's ageing tech begins to fail, human faculties and memories resurface, forcing him to confront the dark provenance of his recruitment.Jed Mercurio and Prasanna Puwanarajah have taken the Conspiracy Thriller and the Western and sent them into orbit. Stunningly illustrated by Coke Navarro, Sleeper is a riveting work of imagination.  

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction

84 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 5, 2021

About the author

Jed Mercurio is a British author; TV and film producer and (non practicing) medical doctor.

He also writes under the name John MacUre. He created the television series Cardiac Arrest, Bodies and the sci-fi miniseries Invasion: Earth (1998). Bodies is based on his novel of the same name and earned him two BAFTA Television Award nominations and two RTS Award nominations. He has also written and directed for The Grimleys (and wrote the pilot episode).

Before turning to writing, Mercurio trained as a doctor at the University of Birmingham.

Reviews

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had only read a few pages of this graphic novel when I felt that it seemed very familiar. Turns out that I read it three years ago! Oh well, at least I still feel the same way about it that I did three years ago...
A biologically-enhanced law inforcement marshal is the central character in this short, midly entertaining science fiction graphic novel.
The story is co-written by Jed Mercurio, creator of the cult British crime series Line of Duty. While not as gripping as that particular series it has some good ideas & the artwork is pretty solid.
I felt echoes of Robocop in the story, which is fine as it's a film I've always enjoyed. Although Slepper was a good read it wasn't strong enough to encourage me to see where the story will go in the next book.

[Owen Townend · Rating 3 out of 5]

An atmospheric Space Western that has still some worldbuilding issues.

Sleeper has a solid premise: a malfunctioning enhanced ranger is awoken from Deep Space/Deep Time Travel to be decommissioned but then must investigate the destruction of the space station he lands on, not to mention the murder of its entire crew. As the man known only as DS-5 investigates 'solarformed' Titan and a connected disappearance, powerful forces move against him and memories of his past life begin to surface.

While I relished the core story and Navarro's art style (which reminds me of the heavily-shaded dynamism of Mike Mignola), Sleeper suffers from some jarring info-dumps that break up the narrative flow. I feel the in-world explanation of what humanity has done to Saturn's moons and the new fuel Titan Green could have done with being paced out better. While this was tolerable, I found the two full pages of article excerpts took me completely out of the story. The technobabble looked convincing enough and did answer some questions I had, though I would have much preferred the key information to have appeared in the actual panels, preferably as a mixture of dialogue and visual clues.

I realise this is the first volume of a series and I sincerely hope that Mercurio and Puwanarajah ease off on direct exposition next time for something a little more aesthetically subtle, that allows focus to remain on character and the mystery at the heart of this adventure.

In any case I enjoyed Sleeper and look forward to seeing where DS-5 goes next and what he learns. I recommend Sleeper: Volume 1 to fans of Space Opera and Modern Westerns alike looking for a moody graphic genre blend.

[Zare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book about the enhanced law enforcer returning from long voyage to be decommissioned.

And when I say decommissioned I mean it decommissioned like an old combat tank. Because you see enhanced law enforcer are not unlike UN Envoys from Takeshi Kovacs' universe - heavily augmented and deadly. So deadly that even their central command is ready to blow them up the moment bad news start coming up because int he past enforcer going crazy caused such mayhem it took substantial resources to bring them down.

And then things go bad - space station in orbit of Titan gets blasted out of space and sole survivor is our hero. Being absent for so long he is not aware of energy conflicts going on and discovery of Titan's fuel and numerous companies fighting over it. Truth be told he does not require all of that information because he is fast learner and once crime is committed he is on track. And no-one who wants to live can stop him from solving the crime.

It is an interesting book with interesting space based cyberpunk story. You wont find any external augmentations, they are all subtle beneath the skin. Events take time and book 1 abruptly stops in the middle of it. If there is one thing that I did not like then it is this. I wish more story was fleshed out - unfortunately this way we are not even one fifth into the story. Hopefully new volumes will be coming soon.

Art is OK, very reminiscent of Mike Mignola's style, wide panels and play with color and shade. To be honest I like to have more elements in the panels (Mignola's style is lots-of-empty-space for me) but it is OK. It is just that story wise I find this book lacking.

All in all recommended to all fans of SF, cyberpunk and old frontier justice movies. But you might want to keep waiting until additional volumes are released (hopefully soon).

[Conah Charlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pre ordered this and received it today, I've never encountered Jeds or Prasannas work so this is my first introduction to their stuff. Coke narvarros illustrations really makes this graphic novel worth it for me as sadly the writing didn't really give me much.

Cokes drawings breathe life into sleepers world and help give it a style of its own. The colours are very sci-fi esque and I'm excited to see more of the world illustrated in the following books.

As far as the story goes its quite straightforward with very few nuances. There was nothing to really grab me, and aside from 1 or 2 exceptions, there wasn't much to make me interested in the characters. On the positive side it plays the 'to-the-point-investigator' cliche very well and if you're into that kind of no-nonsense story telling then you'll love this... I guess it is a crime thriller after all!

I'm a bit disappointed in the lack of personality coming from this graphic novel and would have liked to see maybe some more elaboration on the environmental side of things as there seemed to be a lot of potential for plot points there (I did appreciate the few plot points that were made around this though). I think it's worth giving this book a try and seeing if it has something to offer for you, it might be up your street. looking forward to seeing where this story is headed!

[Toby Slater · Rating 3 out of 5]

Describing Jed Mercurio's story as 'Line of Duty' In-Space does not do the book a service. Yet, there are obvious similarities. The main character is a detective solving a murder, there is an intergalactic space force (for the Solar System). Well, actually he is an android (robot) detective, called a 'Sleeper'. As such, apart from having the intelligence of a computer, he can do neat things like using an inbuilt lie-detector on people. Often, instead of thought bubbles, we will see console computer commands which are occuring in the android's mind. Also similar to Line of Duty, the detective refers to specific policing laws in speech - though there is no interrogation scene in this as occurs in that tv-show. Mercurio notably, on two occaions, has a page of writing, in the form of an email and a science article, which was good and means the book does in a way have a more significant amount of prose (words). As for the detective case, well er it's pretty standard uncovering the clues. But I was left no more knowledgable about what had happened by the end - so, guess I will have to get book2? I just would have liked more to be revealed about in book1. I like this future world he's built up a lot still. "A solar system finally rising out of a devastating climate war following the discovery of a miraculous new energy source: Titan Green", as reads the book description.

On the art, I thought it was good and remiscient of older comic-book style - the colours worked well too. However, when I was looking at Pvwanarajah's drawings in the back, they look more detailed before colour is added - therefore I don't know whether something was lost in art quality when it was coloured.

[Agent_bugs · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's... fine. I was confused by some of the scene changes and it was only just starting to get interesting when it ended, but not interesting enough that I feel like continuing the series. I'm also personally not a fan of the artstyle. If you don't mind spending money on a new graphic novel series that starts off slow, and you're a fan of scifi police stories, then give it a go. I hope you enjoy it more than I did.


Oh, and there are two pages that are just walls of text? I think they're there for world building purposes but they're way too long for what little they add.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are some good ideas in here but to me it felt like the writers, while having great ideas and, in Jed Mercurio's case, being a great in a different format just didnt really know how to write a comic. Or maybe it was the artist? I dont know but there were times i was completely taken out of the story trying to work out exactly what just happened and had to flick back to try and work it out.
Overall I know I will not be reading any follow up if it ever comes out

[TonyAntSonWil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good opening book to what I think will be a long series. It is a no nonsense thriller, no super heroes, no fancy unrealistic plot lines or gadgets. It's all about the story and development. Artwork could be a little better as not really my style but that doesn't mean to say it's not great artwork, it just not usually what I would go for.

Will definitely be reading the next one.

[Celtic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting setup, which reminded me somewhat of Richard Morgan's Solid Air. There's effective noir artwork from Coke Navarro, though the written storytelling is a bit patchy. This is a first issue and is really only scene setting, but there's enough here to make me interested in reading a followup. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be one and I can't recommend this incomplete story.

[Pa_tr0_clus · Rating 2 out of 5]

holy technobabble, Batman

Also, I paid £2 for this at The Works. One star per £ I paid, I guess

[Kaci Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was alright I dont think I’m going to carry on with the series because it all feels wrapped up in the first book anyways

[Soph ♡ (elfmumma) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art work was stunning. Narrative was okay, nothing special.

[Tim Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this, nicely realized. However a word of warning is that it looks like there is litigation about copyright, which may well have delayed volume 2 - till....who knows?

[Emma Stallwood · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cool artwork but that was it. Very disjointed story which had potential to do good things if more time was spent on it. Shame.

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Confusing and sometimes over complex story shoved into 1 short volume with an artstyle that seemed unfinished

[Amy Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick graphic novel read - sci fi space story and an interesting opener to the series.

[Stef · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy the story and the illustrations. However, I do feel like something was missing to make it really good. I had this on my shelf for quite some time and it might be that I hyped it up a little too much in my head before I read it. Jed is an amazing writer, he wrote Line of Duty, which was one of the best series I have ever seen on television and because of this I was maybe expecting a bit more of a wow factor.
Nether the less I’m still glad I read it.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool!

[Lottie Oliver · Rating 2 out of 5]

Robocop meets Terminator in space. I’m still not sure how I feel about this. It was good but also long winded. There were whole pages of text, in a graphic novel… that’s weird.

[Viselik · Rating 1 out of 5]

I think I enjoyed the artwork inside this book more than the actual story, which I've forgotten already. I read this last month and just forgot to update this about it.